SPIRITUAL TECHNOLOGIES: Two Scientists Debate the Benefits of Religion

The Next Big Idea

Next Big Idea Club

Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Education, Science

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2021

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The science is clear: people who engage in spiritual practices live longer, happier, healthier lives. For the past few years, two researchers — Dave DeSteno, who runs the Social Emotions Lab at Northeastern, and Lisa Miller, founder of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia — have been trying to figure out why. They’ve found that treating religious rituals as tools we can adapt to our individual needs and values can help all of us — staunch atheists and devout believers alike — live more meaningful, successful, and connected lives. In this episode, Dave and Lisa share what they’ve learned, discuss the fraught relationship between science and organized religion, and offer tips for making the most of your holiday rituals.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Rufus Griskem and this is the next big idea.
0:08.8	Today, the science of religion.
0:30.0	On the afternoon of September 30th, 2007, four men met for drinks at a
0:43.6	chat at a house in Washington, D.C.
0:46.5	Let me just play devil's advocate for a moment, so we at least were clear what the position
0:50.4	is.
0:51.4	I'd rather speak for the devil, pro bono, am I?
0:53.4	Well, okay.
0:54.4	We can all speak for the devil.
0:55.4	I'm sure a lot of people think we're doing just that.
0:58.0	Like their collared shirts at Brown leather loafers, they didn't look much like the devil's
1:02.2	spokesman.
1:03.2	And their vocations, a journalist, a philosopher, a biologist, and a neuroscientist, gave
1:08.1	no whiff of the satanic.
1:10.4	But these four men all shared the fiendish, some would say, incendiary belief that religion
1:16.2	is a threat to the enlightened mind.
1:18.9	Their names were Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris.
1:23.4	They would come to be known, thanks in large part to that 2007 conversation, which found
1:27.8	its way onto YouTube where it's been viewed more than a million times as the new atheists.
1:32.8	In books, lectures, and articles, they espoused the view that all religions are.
1:37.2	Well, here's how Christopher Hitchens put it that afternoon.
1:40.1	They're all equally rotten, false, dishonest, corrupt, humorous, and dangerous.
	...

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